Was it that shallow?
Cecilia looked at Ruby's severed head in Arzhen's hands. The moonlight caught every detail, how the blue eyes were still open, still wet, frozen in that final moment of ultimate terror and betrayal.
The blood still dripped free from the ragged stump of her neck, dark and jelly-like, dripping in thick, slow globs onto the mud below.
Strands of torn muscle and tendon hung like broken harp strings from the base of her skull. The white gleam of her cervical spine jutted obscenely from the gore, cleanly snapped at the third vertebra.
Her pink hair, once so carefully maintained, was matted into twisted ropes by blood and Arzhen's grip, plastered against her cheeks and forehead in dark, wet curtains.
Her mouth was still open, lips parted, teeth visible, the tip of her tongue caught between them where she had been mid-scream when the end came.
A single tear track was still visible through the blood on her cheek. The last thing she had ever done was cry for help.
